Looking for list randomizer (PC) software.

Roshin

Right.

I'm looking for a specific type of software on the PC. I want a list randomizer that randomly picks a set number of entries from a list (or lists) that I create myself. Entries can be sentences, single words, or numbers. I want it to be off-line and I want the lists to be generous with how many entries I can add to them. Unlimited would be perfect, but unrealistic, I guess.

I thought a program like this would be fairly easy to find, but so far I haven't had any luck. There are some websites that offer services like this (random.org, etc), but I would prefer an off-line solution.

Any advice is appreciated.

Foomy

I would just use a spreadsheet, easy enough to enter all the data you want and then for excel as an example you could use new cells with =INDIRECT(CONCATENATE(“A”, RANDBETWEEN(1, x))) were A is the column your data is in and X is the total number of cells you have filled in to pick from your list.

Roshin

I have little experience with spreadsheets, but tried this in LibreOffice Calc (don't have access to Excel) and it returned #REF!, which I see is an error of some kind. I apologize for being stupid about this.

Foomy

some quick googling says try this =INDIRECT("A"&RANDBETWEEN(1,COUNTA(A1:A7)))

just change that A7 to be the last row of data you have entered or just use something like A10000 as it might only select filled in cells, not sure how libreoffice works on that.

ArbitraryDescriptor

Sounds like you're all set (or nearly so) with a spreadsheet, and that seems pretty optimal to me.

But, if this is for some reason not ideal, a python script that takes a delimited list from a text file and spits out a random entry would be pretty simple.

mts

Actually you probably don't even need to highlight your rows. If you just put 'A' in as the target it will look at the whole column

MichaelLC

Random.org

Roshin

MichaelLC wrote: »

Random.org

Yes, like I said in the OP, there are some websites that offer services like this (random.org, etc), but I would prefer an off-line solution.

I could not get the above suggestions to work. I googled a bit and had a look around the LibreOffice forums and it seems like it should work, but for whatever reason doesn't. Obviously, I'm doing something wrong, but I'm not sure what.

I ended up using a Google spreadsheet with a randomizer add-on. A bit clunky and certainly not off-line, but it sort of works.

Thanks for the help and again, sorry for being dumb about this.

Echo

If you want to try the programming route, it's a simple one-liner in Ruby and Python.

puts File.readlines('some_file.txt').sample(3)

Roshin

Echo wrote: »

If you want to try the programming route, it's a simple one-liner in Ruby and Python.

puts File.readlines('some_file.txt').sample(3)

Thanks, Echo.

Aioua

Roshin wrote: »

Echo wrote: »

If you want to try the programming route, it's a simple one-liner in Ruby and Python.

puts File.readlines('some_file.txt').sample(3)

Thanks, Echo.

@roshin also in powershell, which should already be installed on any Windows machine.

Get-Content "C:\somefile.txt" | Get-Random -Count 3

Roshin

Aioua wrote: »

Roshin wrote: »

Echo wrote: »

If you want to try the programming route, it's a simple one-liner in Ruby and Python.

puts File.readlines('some_file.txt').sample(3)

Thanks, Echo.

@roshin also in powershell, which should already be installed on any Windows machine.

Get-Content "C:\somefile.txt" | Get-Random -Count 3

Thanks, Aioua. I will look into this.